Radeon X1650 Pro overheating

[Mr. Gruntsworthy]

I wasn't sure if this should go in the cooling section or here... but here it goes:


I was playing unreal tournament 3 today (i don't play it too often), and it's the game on my system that most taxes my graphics card.

I was in the middle of playing when it minimized, and Catalyst Control Centre warned me that the graphics card had overheated--it had risen 'above a safe temperature.' I checked CPUID Hardware Monitor; the thing was at a blazing 110 Celsius! I checked with my finger against the plastic casing and nearly burnt my finger.

Now, i'm no expert on graphics cards, but there's no way it should be overheating so badly... The thing normally sits at 70C idle as well (way too high).

I've had the thing for a while now (over half a year maybe?) and my system is always on, so it mightve collected a bit of dust in the heatsink or something.

I cleaned dust off the fan recently, but I don't know how to get underneath the plastic casing to get off the heatsink.

Now, there is still airflow; the fan blows air through it and out the exhaust, but why isn't it keeping cool enough?


If i'm going to have to remove the casing and clean dust out of the HS.. please let me know how, as i don't want to mess this thing up. Until my new build is finished in a month from now, this thing needs to keep me alive

[sswilson]

First thing you're going to want before you start mucking about too much is to ensure that you've got access to some thermal grease (MX2 is my current fav) to replace what's currently on there. From there... it's usually just a few screws on the back of the card, clean the GPU and heatsink with some 99% alcohol, apply a very small amount of thermal compound, and screw it back on.

Before you try that though.... can you manually control the fan speed of your card using something like Riva Tuner? You might want to try that route before you rip the card apart.

[belgolas]

Also you will void the warranty but by the sounds of it you wont have this card for too long. It is very easy to take apart a GPU heatsink. Just before you do that have some thermal grease like sswilson said. Also if this doesn't help you could get some after market cooling or add some more/better fans in the case.

[Mr. Gruntsworthy]

my system isn't too high-end, so the internal temperature of the case isn't the problem, it definitely lies with the graphics card.

I will try this when i get some time and thermal paste (i'm buying some next friday anyways; to apply my aftermarket HSF to my new build).

What form of aftermarket HSF's can graphics cards use?